Can’t get past Outlook splash screen (Word 2000Win98/SR-1)

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This is a problem that has occurred before, but rectified itself. Hopefully that is going to happen again. The last time I used Outlook I got a warning that there was a problem. It gave me the choice to ignore the warning or get out of Outlook. I obviously chose the wrong thing in choosing “ignore” since as soon as I chose that I got a “This program has caused a whatever problem” at which time I had no choice to to “x” out of that window which shut down Outlook. I tried to re-open Outlook and everything locked up and I had no choice but to reboot. It went through the scandisk check and everything seemed fine. But now after rebooting, and after connecting online, Outlook will only show its splash screen and go no further.

I had this happen a few months ago. I happen to get distracted and had to pull up Word to do some work. In about 20 minutes Outlook just popped up and seemed fine. That might have happened maybe two more times and it has been okay ever since. I can only hope this will happen again. I’m considering purchasing a new computer so don’t want to have to re-install Outlook, but maybe that is my only choice at this point. Any suggestions?

Marilyn

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I think when Outlook senses that one of the PSTs was not closed in the desired manner (e.g., it crashed), it does a lengthy scan on the file when you restart Outlook. How long this takes will depend on the size of the file and processor speed, memory available, and perhaps phase of the moon.

After Outlook finishes its analysis, assuming it does, you might want to check how big the file is and consider moving some of the stuff into a second PST. If Outlook crashes again, there will be less for it to check. Hopefully you will get other suggestions that involve less work!

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Hi Jefferson,

What you are saying makes perfect sense…sort of I know that a .pst file is where Outlook keeps everything, but I guess I didn’t think about there being more than one. I do save a lot of things for some of my clients, though I have it set to archive every three months. I never know when they are going to ask me to dig back a few months to read a letter they received of wrote.

I did empty some of the folders where I kept mail that was not important. Maybe that will help?

Since once Outlook goes through this long drawn out routine it seems to have gotten over its bout of indigestion, I believe you are right. Not sure what caused it to crash…maybe I was running out short on memory and needed to reboot. I can’t want to get a new computer and have WinXP on it. I understand that it manages memory much better than my antiquated Win98.

Thanks again for the help.

Marilyn

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